A blog about discovering the South West coast for nature lovers and adventure seekers. If you enjoy activities on the water, by the water and in the water, or celebrate it in words, pictures, art and literature, this blog is about you. For the people, by the people that love the South West coast #ILoveSWcoast

Category: Family walks

Now is the time to set yourself some new fitness goals and step out onto the blustery South West Coast Path to blow away the cobwebs – just make sure you take your waterproofs! The health benefits of walking by the sea are well founded and it’s one of the simplest, most pleasurable ways to keep fit while enjoying a great day out.

January’s long but mostly level 7.4 mile (11.8 km) walk starts from the FirstDowns car park outside Porthleven. It includes a lakeside walk around The Loe, where Sir Bedivere is said to have cast Excalibur into the water as King Arthur lay dying. Here, the waves crash deafeningly on the shingle barrier beach, the site of an 1807 shipwreck costing 120 lives, commemorated in a memorial in the dunes. Cornwall’s largest natural freshwater lake is a major overwintering area for many wildfowl and waterbirds, and cormorants roost in the trees fringing the swamp behind it. There is an optional shortcut across Loe Marsh, reducing the distance to about 8km (5 miles).

Porthleven on the south Cornwall coast is a great base for a winter walk on a less blustery day than the one pictured above. This image of waves crashing into the clock tower features in the 2016 South West Coast Path calendar for January. All 12 pictures are on display at Lynmouth Pavilion, until 31st January.

There is a tradition that Lyonesse lay between Land’s End and the Scilly Isles. At Land’s End, the dramatic granite pillars and buttresses of England’s most westerly point look out over a turbulent sea, where the land divides the English Channel from the Atlantic Ocean. Some people believe that Lyonesse was the site of King Arthur’s final battle with Mordred. According to Arthurian legend, King Arthur’s men fled west across Lyonesse after the Battle of Camlan, in AD 537. Arthur’s men reached the Scilly Isles as the sea rose to engulf the land joining them to the mainland; but Mordred’s men were drowned.

The walk starts at Land’s End car park (postcode TR197AA for satnavs). It is classed as a moderate walk – some rugged stretches of the Coast Path and inland footpaths through fields may be muddy, with plenty of ups and downs. This circuit of the headland also travels inland across a patchwork field system dating back thousands of years.